All Hail the Great One: Learning to Love Cameron Smith
All Hail the Great One: Learning to Love Cameron Smith
https://www.todaystale.com/leaguewhistl ... MoN-K5BxAY
Matt Cleary
May 03 2020
He's played the most games, scored the most points and is the greatest No.9 rugby league's ever seen. And yet there's people that "hate" Cameron Smith. And they are off their head, argues Matt Cleary
Haters gonna hate, as Cameron Smith would tell you.
Yet all those keyboard kooks in Twitter Land who get a stiffy from hating something, anything, and throwing their self-loathing gibber around the e-waves, these people should step back and as Obi Wan said to Luke, search your feelings. And don't give in to hate. Because hating on Cam Smith is ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, "he cheats", "he owns refs", something something salary cap, Melbourne, the colour purple. Got it. They hurled similar stuff at Richie McCaw. The similarity? They are both the very best of their kind, perhaps ever..
Anyway. Smith is an ornament to the game of rugby league. He's the greatest No.9 there's ever been and is entering his 18th season of professional rugby league. And there's a host of reasons you should like him, whoever you are.
Old blokes should like him because he looks like they looked in the 60s: tight, sensible. Neither arm full of tattoos. No silly haircut. He looks like a man should. Military. Old school. A man.
Girls should like him, too, even if they probably won't be flinging themselves like hot muffins as they do your spunkier Tik Tockers. Smith would appeal to women more than girls. He’s 36, could be 50. Save for the hairline his head's barely changed. He has a man’s face, a handsome enough mug, shades of George Clooney, of Colin Farrell: dark low eye-brows; cleft chin; prickly three-day growth.
Young men should like him too, for he’s the wry, wise-cracker, the older bro who’d lend you fifty. Unlike some from the fractious, gilded man-youth of the NRL's e-generation, Smith doesn’t drink alco-pops, wear flash threads nor squire gimlet-eyed hotties. He’s a beer man. Carlton. Drives a Kingswood.
Referees like Smith because he doesn’t front them, get “big” in their faces. Where fools rush in, waving arms, all sweat and spit and indignation - Waddyafugginmean? – looking at you, David Klemmer - Smith just asks a question. Talk us through that one, Sir. He barely even tilts an eye-brow. And the refs, respected, think, Top Bloke. And, ear-worm implanted, they find him ever harder to penalise.
“What he’s got over referees is what he’s got over people,” Storm coach Craig Bellamy said. “He knows how to talk to people properly, honestly, with respect. It’s how he talks to everyone. Doesn’t matter what you are in life. It’s a nice part of him.”
Storm fans, Queensland fans and thinking man's fans like the guy because he doesn’t look like a ‘roid-engorged monster-man. He looks like a knockabout from your social golf club, a tradesman who’ll do you a love-job for a carton. All-Aussie. Top Bloke. Even great bloke. And a great bloody player.
Great? Among the greatest ever, pal.
Few years ago New Zealand Warriors had a tackle-hound called Michael Luck. Ol’ Captain Blood Luck would make 50 tackles and look like he’d been trampled by a team of Clydesdales. Luck once had a gash in his leg so bad it needed 300 stitches, a war wound, it made men gag. Lucky was quite often un-.
When Cam Smith makes 50 tackles there’s still a part in his hair. He doesn’t appear to breathe. He plays a tradesman’s role but pulls it off like an artisan. He’s a work-horse but is no plough-boy nor over-coached automaton. He’s a surgeon. Nurse? Scalpel!
But the marvel of Cameron Smith is not his: slick ball-work at the ruck; darting snipes; subtle dummies; soft hands; veritable genius of a left foot; frozen-rope goals; flawless defence; fitness; precision; guile; bravery; strength; leadership; nor winning ways of rugby league, no. At least not entirely.
For while those are all fine traits and the mark of a Great Player, Smith’s greatest trick is that he does all this stuff as if he’s driving down the shops for milk and bread, cooler than Fonzie-flavoured ice-cream.
A lot of players have Smith’s skills. But no-one has all of them all of the time. His greatness – and you’d wager one day his Immortality – is that he pulls them off near-perfectly every game. Doesn’t matter if it’s round five away to Canterbury or Origin Decider at Suncorp. Smith just … plays. Right option, right time.
And he’s done it for 17 seasons. He’s the most important player for Melbourne, as he was (and still would be) for Queensland and Australia. He was the fulcrum of perhaps the game’s greatest three-prong death squad: The Big Three.
Cooper Cronk may have been credited with more “Try Assists” and Men-of-The-Matches. Billy Slater may have scored more long-range tries to the delighted squeals of girls. But Cronk and Slater could only do their thing on the back Smith’s perfect, soft passes - butterflies wafting into waiting hands. Cronk and Slater didn’t have to think.
“Obviously there are a few strings to his bow,” said Bellamy. “Probably one of his biggest strengths is he’ll take the right option most of the time. No-one does it all the time. But he’s as close as anyone I’ve ever seen. Always cool in any circumstance. Roll that into one player and you’ve got a pretty good footy player.”
I once shared a Chinese meal with two Raiders giants, Tom Leahroyd-Lars and Dane Tilse. And both admitted to being frightened of running at Smith lest he make them look stupid. “It doesn’t mean you don’t try,” smiled Leahroyd-Lars. “You still try to run over him. But he’s very hard to shove off.”
Like Allan Langer did, Smith can get up and inside the ribs of the giants, inveigle himself, and use the bigger man’s weight to throw him into the mud face first.
In 2013 I was at an Anzac Test and Smith had his usual game-face on: The Mask. And he was just there, playing, scheming, doing small things perfectly. A grubber, a show-and-go dummy – it was subtle, super-effective stuff. The surgeon thing rings true. He carved the Kiwis and they scarcely even knew it.
I was at the game with a mate, Matt Hill, an Australian judo champion. And Hilly's brief was: just watch Smith. I wanted Hill to tell me how how Smith could give up 20-30 kilos of mobile muscle to the game’s biggest Vikings – in that case ridiculous man-beasts Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Jesse Bromwich – and bring them down and keep them there. How was he doing it?
Hill said it was because of hours of practice at judo and Brazilian Jujitsu techniques. “To manipulate players, to turn them onto their backs and control them, you have to maintain control of the head. He knows this," said Hill.
“He used to do it with less sophistication. That Thaiday suspension (for a “grapple tackle” in 2008) wasn’t completely his fault. Jeremy Smith was trying to turn Thaiday onto his back by manipulating the arm while Smith was pulling his head the opposite direction. The whole thing went wrong and he was rightly suspended.
“But he improved from that and now he can turn a player, hold him, and give him very little chance of being injured. Yet the guy can’t move.”
Hill, 40 years in judo, can recognise league players who’ve been drilled in the dark arts. He said Smith is the best pseudo-judo man in rugby league.
“In fact," added Hill, "there’s no doubt he could enter and compete in a blue belt Brazilian Jujitsu competition straight away.”
And so we watched the man play. And there it all was: a little ankle-tug here, a head move there, a chin-cup. The plays didn’t hurt his opponent but they did briefly immobilise them. And in a game in which ruck speed is all, Smith’s body-work won the game as much as anything. As Learoyd-Lahrs said over Mongolian lamb: “When he’s got you on the ground he’s always gaining that extra second.”
And there was our Cam, hair perfect, expression of stone, no mistakes, no penalties, respected by refs with an ear worm, making giant men squirm on the ground with the subtle touch of a ninja. And Australia won 32-12.
Man-of-the-match? It was Cameron Smith.
God love him.
https://www.todaystale.com/leaguewhistl ... MoN-K5BxAY
Matt Cleary
May 03 2020
He's played the most games, scored the most points and is the greatest No.9 rugby league's ever seen. And yet there's people that "hate" Cameron Smith. And they are off their head, argues Matt Cleary
Haters gonna hate, as Cameron Smith would tell you.
Yet all those keyboard kooks in Twitter Land who get a stiffy from hating something, anything, and throwing their self-loathing gibber around the e-waves, these people should step back and as Obi Wan said to Luke, search your feelings. And don't give in to hate. Because hating on Cam Smith is ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, "he cheats", "he owns refs", something something salary cap, Melbourne, the colour purple. Got it. They hurled similar stuff at Richie McCaw. The similarity? They are both the very best of their kind, perhaps ever..
Anyway. Smith is an ornament to the game of rugby league. He's the greatest No.9 there's ever been and is entering his 18th season of professional rugby league. And there's a host of reasons you should like him, whoever you are.
Old blokes should like him because he looks like they looked in the 60s: tight, sensible. Neither arm full of tattoos. No silly haircut. He looks like a man should. Military. Old school. A man.
Girls should like him, too, even if they probably won't be flinging themselves like hot muffins as they do your spunkier Tik Tockers. Smith would appeal to women more than girls. He’s 36, could be 50. Save for the hairline his head's barely changed. He has a man’s face, a handsome enough mug, shades of George Clooney, of Colin Farrell: dark low eye-brows; cleft chin; prickly three-day growth.
Young men should like him too, for he’s the wry, wise-cracker, the older bro who’d lend you fifty. Unlike some from the fractious, gilded man-youth of the NRL's e-generation, Smith doesn’t drink alco-pops, wear flash threads nor squire gimlet-eyed hotties. He’s a beer man. Carlton. Drives a Kingswood.
Referees like Smith because he doesn’t front them, get “big” in their faces. Where fools rush in, waving arms, all sweat and spit and indignation - Waddyafugginmean? – looking at you, David Klemmer - Smith just asks a question. Talk us through that one, Sir. He barely even tilts an eye-brow. And the refs, respected, think, Top Bloke. And, ear-worm implanted, they find him ever harder to penalise.
“What he’s got over referees is what he’s got over people,” Storm coach Craig Bellamy said. “He knows how to talk to people properly, honestly, with respect. It’s how he talks to everyone. Doesn’t matter what you are in life. It’s a nice part of him.”
Storm fans, Queensland fans and thinking man's fans like the guy because he doesn’t look like a ‘roid-engorged monster-man. He looks like a knockabout from your social golf club, a tradesman who’ll do you a love-job for a carton. All-Aussie. Top Bloke. Even great bloke. And a great bloody player.
Great? Among the greatest ever, pal.
Few years ago New Zealand Warriors had a tackle-hound called Michael Luck. Ol’ Captain Blood Luck would make 50 tackles and look like he’d been trampled by a team of Clydesdales. Luck once had a gash in his leg so bad it needed 300 stitches, a war wound, it made men gag. Lucky was quite often un-.
When Cam Smith makes 50 tackles there’s still a part in his hair. He doesn’t appear to breathe. He plays a tradesman’s role but pulls it off like an artisan. He’s a work-horse but is no plough-boy nor over-coached automaton. He’s a surgeon. Nurse? Scalpel!
But the marvel of Cameron Smith is not his: slick ball-work at the ruck; darting snipes; subtle dummies; soft hands; veritable genius of a left foot; frozen-rope goals; flawless defence; fitness; precision; guile; bravery; strength; leadership; nor winning ways of rugby league, no. At least not entirely.
For while those are all fine traits and the mark of a Great Player, Smith’s greatest trick is that he does all this stuff as if he’s driving down the shops for milk and bread, cooler than Fonzie-flavoured ice-cream.
A lot of players have Smith’s skills. But no-one has all of them all of the time. His greatness – and you’d wager one day his Immortality – is that he pulls them off near-perfectly every game. Doesn’t matter if it’s round five away to Canterbury or Origin Decider at Suncorp. Smith just … plays. Right option, right time.
And he’s done it for 17 seasons. He’s the most important player for Melbourne, as he was (and still would be) for Queensland and Australia. He was the fulcrum of perhaps the game’s greatest three-prong death squad: The Big Three.
Cooper Cronk may have been credited with more “Try Assists” and Men-of-The-Matches. Billy Slater may have scored more long-range tries to the delighted squeals of girls. But Cronk and Slater could only do their thing on the back Smith’s perfect, soft passes - butterflies wafting into waiting hands. Cronk and Slater didn’t have to think.
“Obviously there are a few strings to his bow,” said Bellamy. “Probably one of his biggest strengths is he’ll take the right option most of the time. No-one does it all the time. But he’s as close as anyone I’ve ever seen. Always cool in any circumstance. Roll that into one player and you’ve got a pretty good footy player.”
I once shared a Chinese meal with two Raiders giants, Tom Leahroyd-Lars and Dane Tilse. And both admitted to being frightened of running at Smith lest he make them look stupid. “It doesn’t mean you don’t try,” smiled Leahroyd-Lars. “You still try to run over him. But he’s very hard to shove off.”
Like Allan Langer did, Smith can get up and inside the ribs of the giants, inveigle himself, and use the bigger man’s weight to throw him into the mud face first.
In 2013 I was at an Anzac Test and Smith had his usual game-face on: The Mask. And he was just there, playing, scheming, doing small things perfectly. A grubber, a show-and-go dummy – it was subtle, super-effective stuff. The surgeon thing rings true. He carved the Kiwis and they scarcely even knew it.
I was at the game with a mate, Matt Hill, an Australian judo champion. And Hilly's brief was: just watch Smith. I wanted Hill to tell me how how Smith could give up 20-30 kilos of mobile muscle to the game’s biggest Vikings – in that case ridiculous man-beasts Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Jesse Bromwich – and bring them down and keep them there. How was he doing it?
Hill said it was because of hours of practice at judo and Brazilian Jujitsu techniques. “To manipulate players, to turn them onto their backs and control them, you have to maintain control of the head. He knows this," said Hill.
“He used to do it with less sophistication. That Thaiday suspension (for a “grapple tackle” in 2008) wasn’t completely his fault. Jeremy Smith was trying to turn Thaiday onto his back by manipulating the arm while Smith was pulling his head the opposite direction. The whole thing went wrong and he was rightly suspended.
“But he improved from that and now he can turn a player, hold him, and give him very little chance of being injured. Yet the guy can’t move.”
Hill, 40 years in judo, can recognise league players who’ve been drilled in the dark arts. He said Smith is the best pseudo-judo man in rugby league.
“In fact," added Hill, "there’s no doubt he could enter and compete in a blue belt Brazilian Jujitsu competition straight away.”
And so we watched the man play. And there it all was: a little ankle-tug here, a head move there, a chin-cup. The plays didn’t hurt his opponent but they did briefly immobilise them. And in a game in which ruck speed is all, Smith’s body-work won the game as much as anything. As Learoyd-Lahrs said over Mongolian lamb: “When he’s got you on the ground he’s always gaining that extra second.”
And there was our Cam, hair perfect, expression of stone, no mistakes, no penalties, respected by refs with an ear worm, making giant men squirm on the ground with the subtle touch of a ninja. And Australia won 32-12.
Man-of-the-match? It was Cameron Smith.
God love him.